"Three Cups of Tea" with Greg Mortenson
On September 22nd, TCAPS students hosted Greg Mortenson, co-author of Three Cups of Tea, for a special assembly at TC West Senior High School to learn more about the author’s personal story. Greg Mortenson is the co-founder of the nonprofit Central Asia Institute, www.ikat.org, and the Pennies For Peace project www.penniesforpeace.org.
The book has become a New York Times Bestseller and was recently featured in the TC Reads program. www.tcreads.org
Mortenson talked with students about his life’s journeys – about his failures and successes, about the positive difference each one of us can make, and about the inspiration he’s gained from children here in our country and around the world. NBC newscaster, Tom Brokaw, calls Mortenson, “one ordinary person, with the right
combination of character and determination, who is really changing the world.”
In 1993, to honor his sister’s memory, Mortenson climbed Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain in the Karakoram Range. After K2, while recovering in a local village called Korphe, Mortenson met a group of children sitting in the dirt writing with sticks in the sand, and made a promise to help them build a school.
From that rash promise, grew a remarkable humanitarian campaign, in which Mortenson has dedicated his life to promoting education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote, volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
As of 2007, Mortenson has established over 61 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan where few education opportunities existed before. These schools provide education to over 25,000 children, including 14,000 girls.